God’s blessing is usually only thought of as God adding to our life, multiplying us, financially blessing us, and other such successes.

I wonder if we realize how often God’s blessing has shown up in our lives as He has subtracted things, as He has been PRUNING us?

Subtraction is a method God uses to mature us. It is a great blessing. 

When God subtracts things it is to simplify and prioritize our faith. To exponentially increase our dependence on Him. To give us wisdom and right perspective on life. To bring a purity to our hearts and our churches. Ultimately to make us spiritually healthy, fit for carrying out His purposes in the earth.

What is God looking to subtract?

These are just a few examples, but represent things that block our relationship with Him:

  • sin and our tolerance of sin within our own heart
  • wrong attitudes
  • wrong habits
  • religious and legalist habits
  • pride, arrogance, ego
  • loose lips
  • love of money
  • love of worthless things
  • our casual idolatries
  • deceitfulness
  • rebelliousness
  • self-seeking and self-centeredness
  • fear of anything other than God Himself
  • wrong relationships
  • wrong people
  • apathy and complacency toward people bound for hell
  • our burdens of guilt or shame over things Jesus has already dealt with
  • our tendencies to fret, be anxious, over think, and trying to work life out on our own terms

We don’t have to strive through this process, just simply accept God’s work in us. The blessing of the Lord–it makes [truly] rich, and He adds no sorrow with it [neither does toiling increase it], Proverbs 10:22 AMP.

When God subtracts things, call it a blessing! Even though the subtraction process may hurt, call it a blessing! Because it is a blessing like no other. It is a stretching of our faith life. It is a method God uses to mature us. It has spiritual and eternal value and purpose.

God has the Nations in mind and if He can subtract all the gunk and junk from us we become a weapon in His hand to accomplish His purposes.

For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights, Proverbs 3:12 AMP.

For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes, Hebrews 12:6 AMP.

…with the humble (those who are lowly, who have been pruned or chiseled by trial, and renounce self) are skillful and godly Wisdom and soundness, Proverbs 11:2 APM.

…He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit, John 15:2 AMP.